Hive partners with Inria to launch sovereign cloud offering
It’s time for sovereignty, startups have realized it. Recently launched in the cloud market, Hive announces a partnership with Inria to accelerate the development of a sovereign offering, first for the general public and then for businesses.
Following a €7 million fundraising last June, Hive today announces a four-year strategic partnership with Inria (National Research Institute for Digital Science and Technology). Its purpose? Create a sovereign cloud offering. Hive, a startup that’s only been around for a few months, wants to be talked about and isn’t afraid to tap Gafam to be heard: “We’re going to build a sovereign cloud that can compete with historical cloud providers. guarantees digital human rights,” says its creator, David Gurle. Funds raised in June 2022 should be used to develop this trusted cloud.
Hive currently offers a “distributed and private cloud that combines the untapped resources of computers.” David Gurley. Its product, HiveDrive, is a classic storage solution similar to OneDrive or Google Drive designed for safe data storage. “We shipped our first release in September, and every month we release a new release that improves the functionality of our product over time,” he said. In its latest update, the company announces the macOS version as well as additional features: renaming folders and files, moving folders and files, more reliable downloading of files and folders, and improved error messaging. This version also provides an installer for Windows with more reliable installation and updates.
It will be commissioned soon
Still, to create a sovereign cloud, the young shot could turn to a more established and experienced company. In a surprising but strategic choice, it joins forces with Inria, a renowned national research institute. “There are many challenges in creating a sovereign cloud on a global scale using peer-to-peer technology. Inria has a globally recognized mission, expertise and competence in these topics. We will work together to find pragmatic solutions to overcome these challenges,” explains David Gurle. , INRIA will be able to strengthen work on decentralized clouds, while Hive will benefit from the experience of French public research.
To provide a completely sovereign offering, the company adds, it uses “end-to-end encryption with user-stored encryption keys and geo-location of data according to users’ wishes / legislation”. It plans to initially target the general public by the end of 2022, then professionals (2023), then SMEs (2024) and finally large companies (2025). On the use side, it will offer “primarily unrestricted secure storage and sharing of data (see H1 2023 with availability for 2022), compute (workloads) and applications on Kubernetes (H2 2023).” The question of price remains. David Gurle notes that “each user can share some of the computer’s resources: hard disk, CPU, GPU. If a user consumes less than his share, there is no charge, it’s free and he earns money to be paid to his Hive account. If the user consumes more than he distributes, he pays the average amount determined by the market. We charge a 5% transaction fee.
Inria is strengthening its research work
The research institute, which is testing the PEPR 1 cloud together with CEA, plans to strengthen its work around decentralized clouds and come up with a concrete application thanks to this partnership. Therefore, three project teams will work with the Hive teams and recruitments are planned to ensure rapid development of the offering. Bruno Sportisse, Chairman and CEO of Inria, did not hesitate to emphasize the importance of this partnership: “I am happy that we are moving forward with the Inria challenge to accelerate the design roadmap with the company founded by David Gurle” before concluding “with our partners for a greater impact, especially Rennes 1 It is an excellent opportunity to jointly mobilize the complementary expertise of several joint project groups with the University and the University of Lorraine.
